An El Al Boeing 720B airliner bound for Tel Aviv was machine-gunned by Arab terrorists tonight as it taxied into a take-off position on the runway at Kloten International Airport. Eight persons aboard the plane, including the pilot, were reported to have been wounded. One of the attackers was killed. Five others, one of them a woman, were captured by Swiss security police and taken away for interrogation. A tight security patrol was immediately established around the airport and the authorities released little information. Gideon Rafael, director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, was a passenger on the plane.
It could not be established immediately whether the slain terrorist had been killed by shots fired by security officers aboard the El Al airliner or by Swiss security guards at the airport. Ever since the attack on the El Al airliner at Athens on Dec. 26, when a passenger was killed, security officers have been “riding shotgun” on El Al airliners in a style reminiscent of the stagecoach guards in the old American West.
There were 17 passengers aboard Flight 432 bound from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv and a crew of five when it taxied out for takeoff. Suddenly a Volkswagen, which had been concealed behind banks of snow, emerged near the plane. Four men jumped out and turned a machine-gun on the plane, firing at least three bursts towards the cockpit, one report said. One eyewitness reported later that the plane’s cockpit and front tires had been “riddled” with bullets.
An El Al spokesman in Tel Aviv said the first officer and a trainee-pilot had been wounded. El Al officials went into conference in Tel Aviv as soon as news of the attack was received to determine what steps, if any, the line should take.
Political circles in Israel viewed the attack with the utmost gravity and would not speculate on the effect it might have on the generally tense Middle East situation.
El Al officials in New York reported, after telephone conversations with El Al representatives in Zurich, that all the passengers on the plane were safe and well and had been accommodated in the Continental Hotel at Zurich. They said that according to their information, damage to the giant aircraft appeared to be slight.
The incident was similar to one at Athens Airport Dec. 26, 1968 when two Arab guerrillas attacked an El Al airliner with grenades and a machine-gun. One passenger in Athens was killed. Israeli commandos struck Beirut Airport two days later in a reprisal action, destroying 13 commercial aircraft without loss of life. The United Nations Security Council condemned Israel for the attack.
Last year members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an Arab terrorist organization, hijacked an El Al plane bound from Rome to Tel Aviv and forced it to land at Algiers. The passengers and crew and later the plane were returned to Israel by the Algerian Government which had been subjected to massive international pressure. Members of the Popular Front, which claimed responsibility for the Athens incident, repeated that claim today. The commandos who attacked the El Al airliner there said they had come from Lebanon.
JTA’s Washington correspondent, Milton Friedman, reporting from Jerusalem, said Israelis were angry and apprehensive over the attack. Public debate was under way, he said, over the wisdom of a reprisal that might further exacerbate Mideast tensions.
First reaction in political quarters, he said, is that Israel should not strike back, especially in view of the bi-lateral talks being conducted at the United Nations by the Big Four. He said that today’s attack coupled with the recent hangings of nine Iraqi Jews as alleged Israeli spies have overcome anti-Israel reactions around the world triggered by the Beirut raid.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
